Vinita Prabhakar, an instructor at South Florida State College, was suspended from her post when admin got wind she was teaching an Ottessa Moshfegh short story in her intro to fiction course. (This Moshfegh short story, to be precise.)
Prabhakar has worked for the college since 2023, and told the New York Times that the voice-driven 2013 short about a chaotic teacher had lived on her syllabus “for nearly a decade without incident.”
But this February, a student expressed “mild discomfort” about the story’s contents to the college president, a one Fred Hawkins. And Hawkins took immediate action, relieving Prabhakar of her post and terminating her contract.
Now Prabhakar is suing the college, with support from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (a free speech advocacy group). According to her suit, Hawkins, an ally of Florida governor Ron DeSantis—i.e., the dangerous doofus who recently signed the “Stop WOKE Act” into law—bypassed procedure by acting before a formal complaint was even issued.
The president also violated protocol by making no attempt at lesser discipline. And he failed to account for the fact that the student who initially expressed concern about the story “ultimately completed the assignment and participated in class discussions without any incident,” per Prabhakar’s suit.
